Viral marketing campaigns: creating a brand was never this easy!

Viruses are not always deadly…they can also act as a very potent weapon in your arsenal as an internet marketer.

Welcome to the world of viral marketing. It’s not exactly a brand new application (remember the Microsoft campaign?), but yes its relevancy is still very important.

Viral marketing:

It generally refers to the propagation of a brands identity through a series of e-mails or through the social networking sites.

Types of viral marketing:

Propagation by intent:

It’s generally a message which encourages people to forward it. It can be anything from chain e-mails to funny clips and jokes which will prompt most people to forward it.

Propagation for money:

The strategy involved here is aimed at getting referrals (in turn propagating a particular brand), so you get a fixed amount for each referral. E.g. online lotteries, contests etc.

Gossip marketing:

Have you ever thought why it happens often that movie stars get into some juicy controversy just before their new movie premieres? Well…that’s gossip marketing at work. By creating a controversy or by releasing some MMS clip on the sly they aim to get into the consciousness of people just before the premiere!

User managed marketing:

Are you a member of classmates.com? If yes, then you are also part this marketing endeavor. As that website is only providing the software, all the content is user generated! So, you get to locate your old friends and the website earns money and creates a brand for actually doing nothing. That’s the power of viral marketing.
If approached the right way viral marketing can be your best bet for brand building in the shortest possible time. You just have to be accurately aware of the message you want to send out (And that’s the toughest part), after all marketing is all about hitting the right buttons at just the right time!

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| Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Yahoo! MyWeb

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Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 at 1:50 pm | Trackback Url